den, den, DEN!
I mean, for all we know she could have been in debt; and there is a great chance she had some grudges against her.
I think she got to deep into the courtroom and maybe....it upset some company or "higher power".
I don't know; it just seems so staged and too sudden. I mean fainted or whatever?
It's either that or someone has just been watching too much prison break....

Whippany, NJ, February 8, 2007 – Today, Anna Nicole Smith’s grief stricken and tumultuous personal life came to an end. Anna came to our Company as a customer, but she departs it as a friend. While life for Anna Nicole was not easy these past few months, she held dear her husband, Howard K. Stern, her daughter, Dannielynn Hope, her most cherished friends, beloved dogs, and finally, her work with TRIMSPA.

Anna knew both the joy of giving life, and the heartache of losing a child. We pray that she is granted the peace that eluded her more recent days on earth, and that she find comfort in the presence of her son, Daniel.

That is so sad about Anna Nicole. I cant say that I am a fan but what a tragic end of a young, turbulent life. It seems so sad that she passed so soon after her own son's death, leaving behind a 4 month old daughter.

I was shocked by the news of her death, especially since I found out from a post on this site.

She wasn't perfect by any means and seemed to have had a lot of problems with drugs, aside from her well publicized legal troubles, but it didn't seem like she was a bad person, rather just naive and disturbed. I felt sorry for her when her son died and I think this Stern guy is a shady character who had a lot of influence over ANS. He strikes me as a major creep.

They keep calling him ANS' husband but the way I remember it from the news back then, all they had was a weird "commitment ceremony" on some boat. If it were a marriage, I assume they would have said so. As it is, I don't think they were actually legally married in the traditional sense of the word.

What Drew Us to Anna Nicole
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 9, 2007

Filed at 2:12 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Anybody who arrived from Mars and wanted to know what all the fuss was over this Anna Nicole Smith would do well to watch just one clip: her appearance at the 2004 American Music Awards.

Prancing onstage in a tight-fitting black gown that showcased her cleavage -- which was, as all else about her, larger than life -- she grabbed your attention. Her looks were outlandish, but there was beauty beneath the excess.

And then she spoke. ''Like my body?'' she asked, tracing her fingers over her breasts. Her slurred words spilled out dangerously. She was clearly very high on something, and you wondered if she would survive, literally.

It was hard to watch. And, of course, harder not to.

Scant hours after news emerged of her death Thursday at age 39, many people were hard pressed to describe what exactly Anna Nicole Smith was. Actress? Model? Reality star? Rich widow? ''I don't know exactly what she did,'' said talk show host Joy Behar, hearing the news over the phone. And yet, trying to put her finger on why we watched this strange woman over the years, she came up with two things: Dysfunction. And beauty.

''No question, she was beautiful,'' said Behar, of ABC's ''The View.'' ''We know people like to watch dysfunction. But beauty gives you something extra to look at. Dysfunction and beauty: Now that's something to watch.''

How was she dysfunctional? Really, how wasn't she? Her strange life seemed to veer from one outsized struggle to another. She struggled famously with her weight and with her family. She sometimes even struggled to speak without slurring. She had a TV show that could be so embarrassing you'd want to watch it with dark sunglasses on. Much more tragically, she lost her 20-year-old son. Five months ago she had a baby daughter and now two men claim to be the father.

In other words, she was a perfect pop culture icon. By contrast, another famous creature of Internet celebrity, the chic-er, more sophisticated and chillier Paris Hilton, has much less to fascinate us, grainy sex video notwithstanding. It's hard to feel sorry for her.

''With Anna Nicole, she was pathetic but at the same time you thought, 'Gosh, if I could just scoop you up and fix things, it would be OK,''' said Jerry Herron, a professor of American culture at Wayne State University. ''You wouldn't want to scoop up Paris Hilton.'''

''Anna Nicole was,'' Herron noted, ''in both her actions and her physical being, such an over-exaggerated version of what we both lust for and loathe in our society. Bombshell blonde? Family feuds? Lots and lots of money? Weight troubles? Obscene self-revelations on TV? She had it all.''

The compelling mix of beauty and vulnerability is just one quality that has led to comparisons with Marilyn Monroe, another sexy, tragic blonde who Smith liked to compare herself to. The comparison is tempting, but the difference is monumental.

''Marilyn Monroe was an artist, a real performer, able to evoke in audiences a real empathy and a passion,'' said Richard Walter, a film professor at UCLA. ''There is NO comparison.'' And yet he sees one strong point in common: the simple beginnings, the climb from total obscurity to fame.

''She came from humble origins and achieved celebrity and wealth, one way or another,'' Walter said. ''And that is an American story.''

For celebrity editor Janice Min of US Weekly, it's the element of perseverance that stands out in Smith's tale, which she sees as ''almost this perverse Hollywood Horatio Alger story.''

''She fought against so many obstacles -- poverty. Teen pregnancy. A bad home life.'' And of course, ridicule. ''But she persisted, where others would have shrunk away out of humiliation and shame.''

It might have made her look pathetic. But it also made it exceedingly hard to look away.

I'm actually surprised at the hours of coverage the 24-hour news channels are dedicating to this. Even ET only dedicated a portion of their 30 minute show. Larry King is doing a full hour tonight. I guess the line between celebrity journalism and so-called mainstream media has really been blurred.

I completely agree. I'm sorry she died, and I understand that people are interested in her, but she was famous for being famous -- it's not as though she was a president or some other figure that might warrant that kind of mainstream media coverage. On the NBC nightly news last night Brian Williams made a similar comment about the cable networks' wall-to-wall coverage.